View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Radboud Repository PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/61908 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2018-07-08 and may be subject to change. Gallic images of Hercules Olivier Hekster Gérard m oitrieux, h e r c u l e s i n g a l l i a . r e c h e r c h e s s u r l a personnalité e t LE CULTE D'HERCULE EN GAULE (Université de Nancy II: Gallia Romana V; De Boccard, Paris 2002). Pp. 518, figs. 28. ISBN 2-7018-0150-8. Moitrieux aims to analyse the origins and development of the cult of Hercules in Gaul. Gaul is taken in a wide sense, comprising the area from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, and from the North Sea to the Mediterranean: Plutôt que de retenir une donnée strictement administrative limitée aux Trois Gaules, nous avons retenu ce que les Anciens appelaient Gaule dans sons sens général... (4). This view is familiar in much recent literature on Roman Gaul.1 Nor is a study of Hercules in the West a novelty. A host of general contributions exists,2 as do articles on Hercules in, e.g, Spain and N Africa.3 The rôle of Hercules in the various localities in greater Gaul has equally received attention. Indeed, Moitrieux himself has been instrumental in providing much infor­ mation on the matter. The present volume attempts to draw together all the disparate evidence for Hercules in Gaul and to use it as basis for a further synthesis. Moitrieux divides the book into three parts. The first, "Les données quantitatives" (9-85), constructs a substantial corpus, while the second, "Études spatiales" (87-165), analyses the distribution patterns of the different types of material. The final section, "Le dieu et le culte" (167-265), tries to distil answers as to nature, function and individuality of the cult of Hercules in Gaul from the data in the first two parts. A short conclusion (269-71) is followed by a proliferation of bibliographies, indices, tables, maps and illustrations (275-508). Use of the illustrations is somewhat hamper­ ed by the poor quality of the reproductions. For example, it is often difficult to distinguish between some of the colours of maps 7-13. The writing style is not always easy to read. Evidence and methods: the corpus Moitrieux puts his material first, carefully compiling an extensive corpus of 971 items offering evidence for Hercules in Gaul, usefully separated into different types of materials: stone objects (11-29), non-stone statues and statuettes (i.e., precious metals, bronzes, non-metal statuettes, and funerary objects) (30-37), and a miscellaneous group, consisting of utensils, ceramics, coins, mosaics and paintings (28-47). These items are catalogued, following different organisational principles, in Tables at the end. Attention is given to problematic objects where identification, provenance, or date is unclear or doubtful. The corpus also includes literary evidence from Greek and Roman authors (69-73), and 141 inscriptions (73-84, with Tables III-IV on 349-55). The work in accumulating such quantities of evidence could easily be praised as 1 Thus, for instance, W. van Andringa, La religion en Gaule romaine. Piété et politique (ler-llle siècle apr. J.-C.) (Paris 2002); Y. Burnand and H. Lavagne (edd.), Signa deorvm. L'iconographie divine en Gaule romaine (Paris 1999); T. Derks, Gods, temples and ritual practice. The transformation of religious ideas and values in Roman Gaul (Amsterdam 1998); and G. Woolf, Becoming Roman. The origins of provincial civilization in Gaul (Cambridge 1998) — surprisingly not cited by Moitrieux. A different, more administrative approach is taken by C. Goudineau in CAH X (2nd edn., 1996) and XI (2nd edn., 2000). 2 E.g., J. de la Genière, "La légende d'Héraclès en Occident," in Le mythe grec dans l'Italie antique, fonction et image (CollEFR 253, 1999) 11-27; A. Mastrocinque (ed.), Ercole in Occidente (Trento 1993); C. lourdain-Annequin, "Héraclès en Occident," in C. Bonnet and C. Jourdain-Annequin (edd.), Héraclès d ’une rive à l ’autre de la Méditerranée (Brussels 1992) 263-91; ead., "Héraclès en Occident, mythe et histoire," DHA 8 (1982) 227-82. 3 M. Le Glay, "Héraclès-Hercule en Afrique du Nord," in Bonnet and Jourdain-Annequin (supra n.2) 293- 308; M. Oria Segura, Hércules en Hispania: una aproximaciôn (Cornucopia 5, Barcelona 1996); R. Olmos, "El Hércules Gaditano en la geografia mitica del Extremo Occidente," in R. Rolle and K. Schmidt (edd.), Archäologische Studien in Kontaktzonen der antiken Welt (Göttingen 1998) 517-30. 670 Olivier Hekster Herculean, but it is not unproblematic. In his introduction, Moitrieux says that to compile the evidence he used a dual strategy. First, he sent questionnaires "à la totalité des musées recensés pour leurs collections archéologiques sur le territoire retenu ..." (4). This brings two obvious problems with it. The response of the different museums was uneven, some giving detailed responses, whilst others, "et parfois parmi les plus importants" (5), were more haphazard in their reactions. In part this problem could be solved by personal visits. More problematic is the exclusion of museums outside the area of research. Any evidence of Hercules which is, for whatever reason, no longer in greater Gaul is excluded. The second part of Moitrieux's method of compilation was a comparison of "la liste ainsi obtenue" with and checking it against modern scholarship. Modern catalogues (especially for inscriptions) were also consulted. In brief, the assembled evidence may well form a representative sample of Hercules' presence in Roman Gaul, but his corpus of 971 items is unlikely to constitute a complete list. Moitrieux then separates the material into a multitude of groups and tries to find local variations in the evidence. Images are split between those depicting the Labours (192 items) and those showing Hercules alone (526). A further 86 items could not be interpreted (109-11 Tables 15-16, 432-48 Tables XVIII-XIX). The various Labours are differentiated. The informa­ tion does not always lead to definitive interpretation. It may well be true that "les épisodes propres à la Gaule ... sont totalement ignorés des artistes gaulois" (98), but this may simply result from an absence of a recognised iconography of specifically Gallic deeds: it does not necessarily imply a lack of local expression. There are other problems too. For much of the evidence the archaeological context is no longer traceable. Although it is likely that evidence in a particular museum originates from nearby, this is far from certain. That makes the Tables of evidence by town (120-39) somewhat problematic. Accidents of survival may also influence the evidence. Post-Roman history comes into play too, since late-antique town walls tended to incorporate many inscriptions. Towns with such walls supply more evidence than others, and a few such sites could distort the pic­ ture substantially.4 Moitrieux recognises some of this when he excludes the major site of Hercules Salutaris at Deneuvre (discussed at 239-42) from his distribution pattern (132 fig. 4; 136 fig. 5; 478 map 4; 482 map 8).5 Moitrieux's Tables yield some interesting results. Clearly, the majority of the evidence stems from the northeast of his territory, as may be illustrated by a Table of the evidence in stone in Gaul's different administrative units (118, Table 21): Province Monuments Inscriptions Total Overlap Results Narbonensis 17 16 33 3 30 Aquitania 22 8 30 2 28 Belgica 158 32 190 11 179 Lugdunensis 39 1 40 0 40 Germania Inferior 20 29 49 3 46 Germania Superior 94 36 130 1 129 The conclusion that there is more attributable worship of Hercules in the northeast sound. But the relative density of monuments and inscriptions in the different provinces ought to be taken into account before concluding where more actual worship will have taken place. Thus, the high number of Hercules inscriptions from Narbonensis coheres with the generally high density (6.1 inscriptions per 100 km2), whereas the low numbers of Hercules inscriptions in Aquitania and Lugdunensis are unsurprising considering the low density there (1.1 inscriptions per 100 km2). Noticeable is the relatively high number of Hercules inscriptions in Lower Germany, especially in light of a low general density (1.9 inscriptions per 100 km2).6 Inscrip­ 4 Woolf (supra n.l) 83, also mentioning the "activities of local érudits who, since the seventeenth century, in some towns systematically collected or recorded many inscribed stones". 5 G. Moitrieux, Hercules salutaris: Hercule au sanctuaire de Deneuvre (Nancy 1992). 6 W. V. Harris, Ancient literacy (Cambridge, MA 1989) 266-68; Woolf (supra n.l) 83-87, with figs. 4.2-5. Gallic images of Hercules 671 tions among the Ubii are crucial here, supplying 20 of the 29 recorded inscriptions (Table III on 349-52, nos. 4-12, 42-45, 96-98, 100, 107, 121). This, in combination with the rather high number (33) of inscriptions stemming from the nearby military territory around the Rhine (Table III, nos. 13-39, 46, 80, 82-84) offers strong support for Moitrieux's main assumption, that the army brought Hercules with it to Gaul, rather than Hercules being an indigenous Gallic deity. This is refined by Moitrieux's argument that Hercules entered Gaul via the Danube area rather than the Rhone valley. An interesting sequence is set out on 147, where the movement of various legions from the Danube to the Rhineland is considered to define a "communauté culturelle".